This panel brings together grounded accounts of how communities across Pakistan experience and respond to the everyday realities of the climate crisis. Through diverse formats—from documentary storytelling to qualitative research and policy analysis—the panel highlights the entangled effects of environmental degradation, gendered precarity, and systemic neglect. It traces how climate change intensifies existing inequalities, particularly for children, women, and indigenous communities, while also surfacing stories of resilience, adaptation, and care. From monsoon brides and child fishers to the vanishing livelihoods of the Indus Delta, these narratives reveal both the fragility and resistance that shape life on the frontlines of ecological collapse. Collectively, the panel calls for urgent, justice-centered approaches to climate response that center lived experience, community knowledge, and intergenerational agency.

I'm Just a Kid: Children Amidst Climate Crisis
Maha Shahid (Habib University)

Monsoon Brides of Sindh River: Climate Change-Induced Child Marriage
Muhammad Noman (Punjab University), Isabeau de Rouffignac (Independent Researcher), and Ambreen Salahuddin (Punjab University)

Impact of Seawater Intrusion on the Livelihood of Indus Delta Residents: Historical and Policy Analysis
Fida Hussain (Habib University)

This panel explores how Pakistan’s urban landscapes are shaped by exclusionary development, securitized governance, and struggles for belonging. It brings together visual, historical, and empirical inquiries into housing demolitions in Karachi, smog and spatial degradation in Lahore, securitization of Hazara neighborhoods in Quetta, and policy attitudes toward energy and climate. These contributions highlight how urban planning, militarized authority, and state violence intersect to marginalize working-class and minority communities, often under the guise of progress or security. At the same time, the panel reviews powerful narratives of everyday resistance—from Hazara youth reclaiming identity through photovoice to women leading housing protests. Using participatory visual research, survey experiments, and legal-historical analysis, these projects critically examine how cities reflect deeper structural inequities while remaining sites of agency, contestation, and potential transformation.

Emic Perspective of Space Securitization: A Photovoice Study of Hazaras in Quetta
Adila Batool (Quetta Book Cafe)

Against the Rubble
Gulzar Nayani (Freelance Filmmaker), Rayhan Muqadam Khan, Uzair Ali, Shaur Azher, and Mashhood Jafri

Lahore Affected by Smog: A Spatiotemporal History
Daniyal Waheed (National College of Arts), and Kinza Faisal

Brutalism and Urban Planning: Military Urbanism, Authoritarian Legality, and the Dual State in Karachi
Hassan Zaheer (Centre for Strategic and Contemporary Research)

This panel examines how displacement, precarity, and structural abandonment shape the everyday lives of marginalized communities in Pakistan’s urban and border regions. It brings into focus Afghan refugees in Peshawar, child laborers at the Torkham border, stateless Bengali workers in Karachi’s Machar Colony, and evicted communities grappling with identity, legality, and survival. The panel traces how these groups are rendered visible through exploitation yet invisible to policy, protection, and public discourse. Whether through deportation drives, border militarization, or the denial of legal recognition, state practices frame these populations as security threats, economic burdens, or expendable labor. At the same time, the panel foregrounds voices from the margins—documenting how individuals and communities contest erasure through informal resistance, tactical silence, and survival labor. These contributions, spanning investigative reporting, ethnographic fieldwork, and visual storytelling, offer a sobering but necessary engagement with the human costs of state power, legal liminality, and systemic neglect in Pakistan’s shadow zones.

Child Laborers at Torkham Border Face Accidents, Sexual Abuse, and Physical Violence
Islam Gul Afridi (Lok Sujag)

Karachi's Helpless Machar Colony is Vulnerable to Disease Outbreaks
Hunain Ameen (HUM News), and Danyal ur Rehman (The Express Tribune)

Evaluating the Economic Impact of Repatriation Policies on Afghan Refugees in Pakistan: Livelihood Strategies and Vocational Readiness in Exile
Rabail Fatyma (School of Leadership Foundation)

This panel explores how education systems in Pakistan are shaped by climate disasters, structural inequity, and evolving models of leadership and access. It brings together studies on flood-impacted schools in Sindh, voucher-based access schemes in Punjab, and leadership practices in rural private schools. The panel highlights how crises—both environmental and systemic—disrupt continuity and deepen educational exclusion, especially for marginalized students. It also examines emergent forms of social justice leadership and the potential of community-centered responses. A civic education pilot project in urban public schools demonstrates how student-led clubs can foster civic engagement and climate literacy, while expanding notions of leadership and responsibility. A documentary on instrument-making and musical mentorship offers a powerful counterpoint—highlighting informal, intergenerational forms of education, creativity, and shared meaning-making that often go unrecognized in formal systems. From ethnographic assessments and grounded theory to mixed-method policy analysis and creative storytelling, these contributions show both the fragility and the transformative potential of education in times of crisis. The panel invites discussion on policy and practice in creating equitable, climate-resilient, and context-sensitive educational futures.

Education in Times of Climate Catastrophe: A Study on the Impact of Sindh’s Flood in TCF Schools
Ayesha Salman (The Citizens Foundation), Marie Lall (University College London), Licia Proserpio (University of Bologna), Ali Nadeem Sipra (The Citizens Foundation), Fizza Sangi (Harvard Graduate School of Education), and Zuha Sohail (The Citizens Foundation)

Social Justice Leadership in Rural Pakistan: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study of Private School Leaders
Palwasha Khan Marwat (National University of Sciences and Technology, and National College of Arts)

Exploring Stakeholder Perspectives on the Influence of the Punjab Education Foundation’s Education Voucher Scheme (EVS)
Talha Hyder (LUMS), Nusrat Baquee (LUMS), and Ashar Hussain (LUMS)

Exploring Frameworks for Civic Engagement for Public School Students in Karachi
Muhammad Aatir Khan (Habib University)

Ek Pyaar ka Tappa
Marya Darukhanwala (Habib University)

This panel explores how legal systems in Pakistan function as both instruments of control and arenas for contestation. It engages with the complex interplay between law, identity, and governance—examining how legal frameworks shape access to rights, reproduce inequity, and become spaces for resistance. The discussion spans environmental governance, urban displacement, gendered exclusions, and recognition politics, highlighting the everyday negotiations and power dynamics embedded within legal encounters. The panel reflects on how people navigate legal institutions to challenge dispossession, assert dignity, and reimagine justice—especially in contexts where formal mechanisms fall short. From constitutional courts to community-based dispute resolution, these contributions offer insights into both the limits and the emancipatory possibilities of the law.

Litigating the Climate Crisis in Pakistan: An Analysis of the Chaudhry Court’s Role in Environmental Protection
Khan Faqir (University of Peshawar)

The Archive of Flesh: Subaltern Trans Ontologies and the Afterlives of Legal Recognition
Muhammad Huzaifa (Institute of Business Administration)

Advancing Social Equity in Pakistan Through Institutionalizing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR): A Model for Legal and Governance Reform
Nudrat E. Piracha (International Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution and Prevention)

Impact of Patriarchal Practices on Controlling Women’s Agency in Marital Negotiation of Nikah Nama in Rural and Urban Punjab
Muhammad Usman Zia (National College of Arts)

Political Legal Work for Housing Justice: Case of the Karachi Nullahs
Abira Ashfaq (Habib University) and Arsalan Anjum (Orangi Nullah Mutasirin Committee)

This panel examines how labor, mobility, and economic policy intersect to shape structural precarity in contemporary Pakistan. It engages with diverse sites of economic activity—from the textile factories of Nooriabad to rural-urban remittance corridors—unpacking how historical legacies, legal frameworks, and institutional failures continue to define patterns of inequality. Drawing from mixed-method and empirical research, the panel investigates gaps in labor protections, food insecurity, and the gendered impacts of underpaid work. It foregrounds the lived realities of workers—internal migrants, child laborers, and informal employees—while also tracing global flows of remittances through cultural, linguistic, and geographic proximity. Together, these presentations argue that economic vulnerability in Pakistan is not incidental but embedded in policy omissions, weak enforcement, and deep-rooted historical structures. By highlighting these dynamics, the panel calls for reimagining labor rights, social protections, and redistribution through the lens of justice and structural reform.

Exploring the Migration Patterns, Labor Rights Compliance and Violations, and Access to Social Security Benefits among Textile Industry Workers in Nooriabad
Aqsa Aziz Khan (International Development Economics Associates)

The Multi-Dimensional Impact of Proximity Variables on International Remittances: An Analysis of Genetic, Geographic, Linguistic, Cultural, and Religious Factors
Rabia Ikram (Lahore School of Economics), Gul Noor Ismail (Lahore School of Economics), and Hamza Baksh Ghani (Lahore School of Economics)

Labor Market Factors and Household Food Insecurity in Pakistan – A Missing Connection
Robina Kouser (National University of Sciences and Technology), Faisal Abbas (National University of Sciences and Technology), and Verda Salman (National University of Sciences and Technology)

Local Inequalities in Sindh: A Geographic Dataset Based Empirical Analysis
Muhammad Ashar Khan (Habib University), Fatima Sami (Habib University), Sophiyah Farhan (Habib University), and Fatimah Riaz (Habib University)

This panel engages with questions of identity, marginalization, and creative resistance through documentary storytelling. From Karachi to Kashmir, it brings together narratives that reimagine belonging outside dominant social and political frameworks. The films explore the lived realities of individuals and communities often rendered invisible—whether through disability, displacement, or territorial erasure. Through theatre, craft, and oral histories, these stories reflect how art becomes a mode of survival, memory, and protest.

Chaal
Areeba Yunus (Wintex) and Yusra Batool (Freelance Filmmaker)

Longing for Paradise – Map Shawl of Kashmir
Sidra Khawaja (Kashmir Creatives Collective) and Zafeer Butt (Kashmir Creatives Collective)

Bakarwals – The Shepherds of Kashmir
Zafeer Butt (Kashmir Creatives Collective) and Sidra Khawaja (Kashmir Creatives Collective)

This panel examines how climate change, social norms, and emerging technologies are reshaping health experiences and responses in South Asia. Papers span from regional analyses of climate-induced malnutrition to sociocultural determinants of maternal health in Karachi, and the growing use of generative AI as a health resource for young people in Pakistan. Drawing on mixed-methods and systems approaches, the panel explores how overlapping vulnerabilities—ecological, structural, and digital—are negotiated in everyday health-seeking.

Climate Change and Food Insecurity: Impact of Climate-Induced Malnutrition in South Asia (2000–2023)
Uzma Naz (Minhaj University Lahore)

A Systems Perspective on Maternal Health: Sociocultural Determinants Shaping the Pregnancy Experiences of Young Women in Karachi
Naba Imran (Habib University)

Artificial Intelligence for Youth Health: Evidence from Pakistan
Ahsan Mashhhood (Habib University), Inaya Khan (Habib University), Aamna Ahmed (Habib University), Maryam Hashim (Habib University), and Sara Baloch (Habib University)

This panel brings together critical feminist inquiries into the political agency, resistance, and infrastructural creativity of women in Pakistan’s historically marginalized regions. From the post-merger tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the contested terrains of Balochistan, and the digitally excluded Pashtun communities of the northwest, the papers trace how women negotiate cultural constraints, displacement, and state neglect to assert leadership and build alternative systems of belonging. The presentations examine gender disparities in political participation, the emergence of grassroots feminist thought in Balochistan, and the formation of “feminist digital infrastructures” among displaced Pashtun women. Together, they interrogate colonial legacies, patriarchy, and state violence while foregrounding women as agents of structural change, reimagining power from the peripheries.

Cultural Barriers and Enablers to Women's Leadership in Post-Merger Tribal Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Aziz Ullah (National Defence University)

An Anatomy of Women’s Empowerment from the Margins: Exploring Border Thinking Concerning Resistance against Patriarchy in Balochistan, Pakistan
Hamayoon Khan (Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences)

Bandwidth and Belonging: Feminist Digital Infrastructures in Displaced Pashtun Communities in Northwestern Pakistan
Zainab Najeeb (Rutgers University)

This panel focuses on the exploration of religious identity, trauma, and the co-existence of communities in Pakistan. It reflects on a rare instance of shared spaces and religious unity in Sindh, in defiance of polarizing discourse that dominates our society. Using creative storytelling, it explores the intersection of caste, faith, and labor discrimination. It examines the impact of religious persecution and outlines how systemic discrimination shapes spiritual detachment, moral injury, and psychosocial trauma. Together, this panel curates a textured conversation about how faith—whether expressed through lived coexistence or endured as marginalization—shapes bodies, beliefs, and belonging in contemporary Pakistan.

Story of Friendship Between the Religions
Sameer Ali Khan (Collective Pakistan), Sonia Kholi (Collective Pakistan), and Abdul Bari (Collective Pakistan)

Unseen
Uzair Surhio (Independent Filmmaker), Afreen Zehra (Independent Filmmaker), Rizwan Ahmed (Independent Filmmaker), and Ramsha Chachar (Independent Filmmaker)

Cognitive and Affective Mechanisms of Discrimination and Subsequent Effects on Religious Minorities: A Psychosocial Analysis
Lamha Kausar (Independent Researcher)